


Kinship Recognition

by Lizzen



Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Genre: Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Pining, lololol sorry reed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A friendship, of sorts, blossoms as Pyro earns his stripes with the Brotherhood. (Set around X3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kinship Recognition

"Try a little harder," she says and her voice is smooth as silk. Three dance steps to his right and she elegantly dodges the flame darting from his hand. The room smells of smoke and singed hair and his sweat and the complete absence of her scent. It keeps him focused, the blood rushing to his brain and his adrenaline in check. 

"There's hope for you yet," Mystique says. 

-  
He listens to the quiet of the evening, focusing on the sounds of crickets. With his eyes closed, he flicks his lighter on and arcs the flame carelessly in the direction of an annoyingly loud cricket nearby. 

The sounds stop at once, the smell of burning grass and wood and insect filling his nose as he controls the fire, cools it down to nothingness. 

(In the morning, he stares at the scorch mark in the forest and smiles.)

-  
Magneto doesn't really trust him, he thinks. Yet.

So he turns his easy assignments to hard ones – acts of unsophisticated terrorism or simple thievery turn into a complex dance of networking for more information and the creative collection of clever items. He consumes all that he touches and brings it back, holds it up, presents it without being too eager (he hopes).

He tells Magneto about an adamantium case being held in Nebraska and the location of the mutant who originally stole it. He finds them a weapons bunker, four new safe houses, and he single-handedly blows up a small hospital north of Vancouver. 

The boss is pleased, he thinks, when he tells him about a device that Reed Richards has invented and that there's a chance at getting to it the following week. Magneto looks to Mystique and she nods, her yellow eyes unblinking. 

"Prep him," Magneto says, sweeping his cape behind him as he walks out of the room.

"You think with your head and not your dick," Mystique breathes into his ear. "You might last longer than the rest of us."

As he turns, she shifts into Rogue. 

"Bitch." But he flinches all the same.

-  
In the airplane, he watches the silky blonde hair erupt from her head and her face shift into white, white, and high cheekbones. 

"You always wanted to be the Human Torch for Halloween, didn't you, Johnny?" she asks. 

He narrows his eyes. "You think I really wanted to be the _Human_ Torch?," he shoots back. 

The Susan Storm with yellow eyes and a sly smile crosses those perfect legs and leans back in her chair. "You think that's why people love them? Because they were once human?"

"The people don't really love them," Magneto interrupts. "They just hate them _less_."

-  
"What the—"

Mystique has a tranquilizer dart deep in the Invisible Woman's throat before she can react to their presence. Pyro distracts the Torch until he too falls, unconscious, to the floor. 

"So, all of this for a listening device," she says quietly, shifting form again and again as if bored. 

"Richards' work is the best," Pyro says, putting out the fires and smoothing his jacket. 

"You did good finding it," she says. "Magneto has always wanted to hear the heart beating in Xavier's chest at a distance." There's a vicious tone in her voice. 

Looking at her in shock, he almost misses Magneto's signal. 

-  
"You shame the very name of mutant, sir," Magento says. "Oh, Mr. Richards, how easily we succumb to the pleasures of a woman's touch and lose our very souls."

Pyro sheds his disguise first, his own skin reappearing as he whisks away the intense shell of fire surrounding him. Mr. Fantastic stares in picturesque horror as Magneto's faux-Doctor Doom mask slides in liquid metal form to the ground and the no-longer-writhing-and-yet-blushing blonde in his arms shifts to blue and blue and blue. 

"But—"

"Deception is only one of the Brotherhood's tools," Magneto says, reaching out to take the device from Mr. Fantastic's hands. "The misappropriation of particularly useful objects, however, happens to be my favorite."

-  
"You want to hurt Bobby, don't you?" she asks. 

"No," he says, thinking about it. "I want to hurt Rogue."

"Then, darling, you should be obsessed with the Wolverine." 

His eyes narrow. "Okay, so maybe I do want to hurt Bobby."

"Nothing wrong with that," she says, "As long as you stay focused. Personal feelings should only refine us, direct us - not distract. We're fighting a war here."

"You're so full of shit," he says. 

-  
He watches Magneto discard his damaged valkyrie and Pyro sees in her eyes how stupid, how utterly wasteful it is to care, to feel. 

Mystique visibly breaks, her world shattering as her master turns away from her. 

-  
"You miss her." The voice creeps into his thoughts before he actually hears the words spoken aloud.

His eyes see the red and red and crimson and that horrible grin, and he would give anything to see blue. 

The Phoenix stares at him with eyes of uncontrollable chaos. "Don't think you're alone." She darts her eyes to where Magneto sits; her smile deepens, like this is fun. "Poor little king," she says. "Poor little prince."

-  
Someone throws his battered body over their shoulder as everyone flees the island, the Dark Goddess establishing her terrible reign. 

He wakes up in a hospital, sore and alone and forgotten. And unmistakably cold.

(But he's not surprised when she shows up.) (He's only grateful.)

-  
Raven Darkholme brings him to a safe house, one he had never been to. One with sixty tons of explosives in the basement. The slick sensation of panic seeps into his skin. 

They sleep in the same room; or at least pretend to sleep. She stays up all night staring at her hands and he scribbles down scenes from novels he'll never finish. 

He doesn't talk much and she says nothing, just sits in front of Reed Richards' device and listens, listens, collects.

-  
"Try a little harder," he says and his voice is hoarse. The cool, cream forehead of Raven Darkholme wrinkles in thought before she eyes him, barely nodding. She smells like human and fury and he can hardly keep his eyes off of her. Calling a flicker of flame into his palm, he aims it at her skin. 

She dodges and unexpectedly shrieks, untouched by the fire, but burning all the same. He watches, fascinated, as the skin cracks, bends, and seems to sing in a wicked vibration before shifting to myriad shades of blue. 

"There's hope for you yet," Pyro says.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Pen for the beta on this very very old fic, previously posted elsewhere. <3


End file.
